Care International:

"CARE International works in more than 70 countries around the world tackling poverty wherever the need is greatest. Across five continents, CARE's work has an impact on more than 45 million people worldwide.

CARE’s strategy on conflict takes a three pronged approach:

- Conflict sensitivity: We want all CARE staff and partners to be aware of how to avoid inadvertently contributing to conflict in all their work. We train them and use staff exchanges to help them meet the minimum standards we expect.

- Peacebuilding: We pilot innovative programmes, share the lessons we’ve learned and examples of best practice. We promote innovation and exchange.

- Policy development: We aim to develop policy guidelines to guide and support CARE’s work in conflict environments - for example, in what circumstances and to what extent should CARE co-operate with the military?

To address these issues, CARE is supporting pilot research and programming, collecting experiences from inside and outside of CARE, linking conflict to development and emergency response, and helping countries and institutions set up conflict sensitive and peacebuilding programmes.

Emergencies

Fighting poverty is never more difficult than in times of crisis. For communities already poor and vulnerable, any disaster can be catastrophic.

When disaster strikes, CARE is one of the first to respond. Known for our rapid emergency response, we make sure assistance gets to where it is needed most.

The first phase of our response is to meet people’s basic needs, including food, water, sanitation, shelter and health care. Our emergency capacity - funds, resources and specialist staff - allows us to provide fast, effective relief and we buy materials locally wherever possible.

We work to move communities as quickly as possible from a situation of emergency response to rehabilitation and sustained development. Helping people help themselves, our longer term activities range from infrastructure repair to helping small businesses grow. In post-conflict rehabilitation programmes, in places such as Angola, Bosnia and El Salvador, we also carry out programmes such as landmine awareness and removal.

HIV and AIDS

39.5 million people live with HIV, mostly in poor countries, and every year the virus spreads – new infections topped 3.4 million in 2006 alone (UNAIDS 2006).

In Lesotho, CARE is providing school meals for AIDS orphans and teaching them to grow their own gardens.

Worldwide, CARE runs 156 HIV and AIDS projects, helping 12 million people who live with the disease have a better life. And we are calling policy makers and governments to help people living with or affected by HIV and AIDS earn more money in order to live more secure lives.

We also help orphans and vulnerable children go to school and their carers to earn more money. To help stop the stigma attached to HIV and AIDS and its spread, CARE is running education programmes, and we are helping communities access affordable healthcare beyond antiretroviral drugs.

CARE is a Stop AIDS coalition member, an initiative of more than 80 of the UK's leading development and HIV and AIDS groups campaigning for urgent action.

Health

Poor health and poverty go hand-in-hand. In Niger, CARE is saving mothers and infants from HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections, by tackling the way these diseases are spread. When you are sick or caring for someone who is ill you can’t build a future for yourself, your family or your community.

CARE fights poverty by improving the health of millions of the world’s poorest people, including 7 million children last year. Through long-term health care and education programmes, as well as immediate medical assistance in emergencies, our programmes create lasting change.

Helping the poorest people help themselves, our health education projects teach people how to improve and protect their health, and we train local volunteers as counsellors, mentors and monitors of community health.

Our reproductive health programmes focus on family planning, prenatal care, labour and delivery services, as well as the prevention, detection and treatment of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV and AIDS.

Water and sanitation

Clean water: without it, people die. With only dirty water, diseases like typhoid and malaria are certain, and the threat of death is near.

In Bangladesh, CARE is working with six local groups to provide hygiene and sanitation education programmes for their communities. We aim to help 160 local groupss deliver the same programmes. More than one billion people in the world do not have clean water to drink. Two billion do not have adequate sanitation, like toilets.

Since 1950, we've helped an estimated 10 million people in 30 countries access safe drinking water. In 2005, we provided safe water for some 730,000 people, including 140,000 in Gaza and the West Bank, and improved sanitation for more than 600,000 around the world.

Often people trapped in large city slums cannot get clean drinking water simply because local authorities or water companies have not installed water pipes.

In Gaza and the West Bank, some Palestinians live on as little as 40 litres per day, less than half the recommended daily amount for healthy living. As a result, poor people pay a higher proportion of their incomes buying packaged water and spend hours every day queuing for it, leaving them little time to earn a living and preventing children from going to school.

Food and farming

Millions of people die from hunger and malnutrition every year all around the world. But all of these deaths could be prevented.

CARE has helped more than 2.6 million farmers in 42 countries increase crop and livestock yields and to market their produce. CARE gives food aid in emergencies, but we also work hard to tackle the deeper causes of malnutrition and starvation.

CARE is calling for a change in the way aid is delivered to people living on the edge of emergency to help tackle underlying problems, like widespread poverty, HIV, climate change and weak local economies. These are the real reasons millions of people worldwide live on the edge of hunger, destitution and, all too often, death.

We work with hundreds of communities around the world to develop reliable, long-term food supplies. Many of the world’s poorest people live in rural areas, so improving agriculture and protecting natural resources is crucial to the long-term fight against poverty. In Sudan, CARE distributes seeds, trains farmers, starts schools for farmers, builds small reservoirs, and helps create village committees to manage resources.

Our projects help rural families grow more food, and conserve and improve soil, water and other natural resources. We assist people to sell their produce, both locally and internationally. The farmers, in turn, train and work with others in their local community, building viable long-term industries that provide a buffer against disaster.

Education

Too many of the world's poorest children are missing out on basic education. More than 100 million children around the world do not go to school. In India, our international award-winning project helps thousands of girls go to school. So far we’ve provided teacher training for 350 schools and set up 90 community classrooms.

CARE helps more than 1.4 million children around the world get a good education. Nearly 70,000 children are in schools directly supported by CARE. And in 2005, we trained more than 3,000 teachers.

CARE helps parents, teachers and community members work together to get children to school. We also assist regional and national governments deliver better education programmes.

Business partnerships

Aid organisations and big business are not often seen as likely bed fellows.

Finding solutions

CARE International's view is that new solutions are needed to the complex problems that face the world today, such as rapid urbanisation and poverty, and that business has to be part of the solution. By harnessing the core skills and technical expertise of big business, CARE believes it can begin to find lasting, sustainable solutions.

We are working together with businesses with the aim of devising operating models that produce profit for companies while at the same time serving the interests of the poor.

This is all about using business knowledge, expertise and dynamism and combining this with the knowledge and skills CARE has of engaging with poor communities, understanding their needs and recognising their capacity to be active participants in development solutions.

How does it work?

One excellent example is a major microfinance initiative taking place in India, where CARE is developing a system with India’s second-largest bank, the ICICI Bank. What began as a few small-scale microfinance schemes is now turning into a totally new model for linking corporate and social sectors.

The initiative will provide the poorest with a comprehensive suite of financial services, including credit, insurance and new savings products, moving them away from an NGO-led initiative to a self-sustaining financial system that is viable and interesting enough for a major international bank to run.

Partnership models can make money for business, thereby giving business an incentive to keep projects going and make the partnership more and more successful. By tying together the profit principle with the needs of the poor, CARE believes you can produce a model that really is sustainable, replicable and scalable. It is a new way of doing business.

Microfinance and markets

What would you do if a bank refused to take you on?

Without access to basic financial services, like insurance, loans and interest-earning savings, how would you save for the future? How would you grow your business or borrow for a home or even insure yourself against disaster?

Like millions of the world’s poorest, you would be left vulnerable, struggling in hard times, with little chance of improving your life.

CARE has an unprecedented track record helping poor communitiesfind sustainable ways of earning a decent living.

We provide basic financial services to millions of the world’s poorest people and help develop and open new markets for them to sell their products in.

Our services help the poorest earn a decent living, grow their businesses and create new jobs. This allows them to get better food, clean water, health care, education and the ability to survive emergencies – pulling whole communities out of poverty.

Our market development initiatives fuel economic growth. We help develop and improve their products and help them using new technology. We also help small producers collaborate - by joining forces they can fulfil bigger, more reliable orders, and buy and sell in new markets that would otherwise be out of their reach.

Community organisation

Fighting for your rights is a tall order on your own. But for the world’s poor, fighting for their basic rights is an enormous challenge.

In Malawi, CARE is helping build relationships between community organisations and the Malawi Governments' health system. We are empowering community organisations to partner with, and hold to account, government and donors.

Many are unaware of what they are entitled to, can’t read or write, and have no way of communicating with those who have the power to make a difference to their lives.

Alone, they have no voice. But this is where community organisations – known as civil society – come in. CARE helps people build a shared voice through community organisations.

We work effectively with many community organisations, from small business groups and human rights campaigners to development and social movements, helping them get their voices heard and claim their rights.

CARE is in a unique position. More than 90 per cent of our staff are local to the communities we work in. That means we have unprecedented trust in, and understanding of, the communities and cultures we work with.

Gender

Women are the poorest people in the world. More than 70 per cent of the 1.3 billion people who struggle to survive on less than 60p a day are female.

Afghanistan is one of the most dangerous places to be female. In some areas girls are used to pay opium debts, many endure death threats because they work, and only two per cent of rural women can read and write. To help, CARE is providing education to thousands of women and girls.

CARE helps the world’s poorest women by giving them access to basic financial services, like insurance, loans and interest-earning savings. We also help provide them with good health care, quality education and a voice through community organisations.

In Niger, CARE is helping women through our savings and loans groups. By saving a pot of money together, they can buy food and household goods, as well as take out loans to start small business, such as chicken farming, which can earn them more money.

Just £20 gives a girl in Afganistan the chance to go to school.

CARE is a member of the Gender And Development Network (GADN), which is made up of more than 180 leading practitioners, academics and consultants working on gender and development issues.

Urban poverty

For the first time in history more people live in cities than rural areas, making urban poverty one of the most important, yet most overlooked issues, of the 21st century.

Nairobi, Kenya: In one part of Kibera, one of the world's largest slums, there is one latrine per 4,000 people. This forces people have to deal with their own waste, much of which ends up in the streets creating a huge health risk.

Our work focuses not only on the symptoms but on tackling the causes of urban poverty. We believe these are:

1. Poor governance – where those with power do not have the money, ability, or desire to help the poorest people live in dignity,

2. Powerlessness and voicelessness – where the poor do not have the confidence, skills or opportunity to speak up for themselves. And where they do, they are not heard,

3. A lack of access to basic services - like clean water and rubbish collection,

4. A lack of opportunities to earn a decent living.

On the ground, we work with local authorities, civil society organisations, and companies to make sure poor people in cities get clean water, sanitation, healthcare, rubbish collection and other services. Poor people have a right to all of these, but so often they do not see the results.

We support poor people in cities to voice the challenges they face, and a have their say in how their city is run. We help officials in local and national government, as well as private companies, to create and put into action policies that will help the poor."

If you have been tempted by this, here's the link: